“I beseech you, for God’s sake, and for your own sake, watch against every vice, every provocation of God Almighty against us; against intemperance in drinking—against profane language and all debauchery!—and let us all rely on the army of the Most High....”
That after a safe homeward voyage Captain Derby reported to General Washington in person[22] on the 18th of July, appears from the Essex Gazette for that month as follows:
“Cambridge, July 21.
“Capt. John Derby, who sailed from Salem for London a few Days after the Battle of Lexington, returned last Tuesday, and the same Day came to Head-Quarters in this Place. Very little Intelligence has yet transpired—we only learn, that the News of the Commencement of the American War through the People in England, especially the City of London, into great Consternation, and occasioned a considerable Fall of the Stocks. That the Ministry (knowing nothing of the Battle till they saw it published in the London papers) advertised, in the Gazette, that they had received no Account of any Action, and pretended to believe that there had been none. That the Parliament was prorogued two Days before Capt. Derby arrived, but it was said would be immediately called together again. That, when he left London, which was about the 1st of June, no Account of Hostilities had been received by the Ministry from General Gage, notwithstanding the Vessel he dispatched sailed four Days before Capt. Derby. That our friends increased in Number; and that many who had remained neuter in the dispute, began to express themselves warmly in our Favor: That we, however, have no Reason to expect any Mercy from the Ministry, who seem determined to pursue their Measures (long since concerted) for ruining the British Empire.
“Capt. Derby brought a few London Papers, some as late as the 1st of June, but we have not been able to obtain a Sight of them. We are informed they contain very little News, and scarce any Remarks on American Affairs.”
It was singularly appropriate that this same Captain John Derby who carried the news to England of the beginning of the American Revolution should have been the shipmaster to carry home to the United States the first tidings of peace in 1783, when he arrived from France in the ship Astrea with the message that a treaty had been signed.
This Captain John Derby won a claim to further notice in the history of his times as one of the owners of the ship Columbia which sailed from Boston in 1787, circumnavigated the globe, and on a second voyage discovered and named the mighty Columbia River on the northwest coast of America. The vast territory which includes the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho was then an unknown and unexplored land, claimed by Spain because her navigators discovered it, by Great Britain because Francis Drake had sailed along the coast in 1759, by Russia because Bering had mapped the North Pacific and prepared for the opening in 1771 of the fur trade from Oregon to China. But no nation had established a foothold in this territory and its extent and natural features were wrapped in mystery.
In 1783, a young American seaman who had sailed with Captain Cook on an exploring voyage of the North Pacific, published a chart and a journal of the voyage, and first brought to the attention of American shipowners the importance of the Northwest fur trade. Ledyard was called an enthusiast, a visionary, until his story attracted the serious consideration of the leading shipping merchants of Boston and Salem. John Derby joined three men of Boston in the venture and the quartette of partners subscribed what was then a huge capital of fifty thousand dollars to equip and despatch a ship to the northwest coast and open an American trade in furs with the Indians.
The Columbia was chosen, a ship of two hundred and thirteen tons, small even for that period, mounting ten cannon. Captain John Kendrick was given the command. As consort and tender for coastwise navigation and trade a sloop of ninety tons, the Lady Washington, Captain Robert Gray, was fitted out.